“Why are we whispering?” Sophie hissed, efficiently covering her hands.

“Because burglars always whisper?” Lindsay said in her normal voice as she picked a way through the open-plan office to the stairs.

“I thought we weren’t burglars?”

“So sue me. I can’t believe I’m doing this for the second time in the same week. Raiding offices, poking around in other people’s data.”

Sophie shrugged. “Synchronicity. You probably wouldn’t have thought of this approach if you hadn’t already been messing around with somebody else’s computer. But let’s face it, you dropped lucky with Guy and Stella. Do you really think we’re going to find proof that Danny’s running a ghost-jobs scam?” she said skeptically. “Wouldn’t a sensible man have destroyed all the evidence after Penny confronted him?”

“Professional criminals are convinced they’re smarter than the police. They know they’re never going to get caught. So they hang on to all sorts of incriminating stuff. Besides, Danny King can’t get rid of the evidence without explaining to the tax people why it is his company has suddenly shed half its editorial staff when on paper they’re the ones generating his profits.”

“Good point,” Sophie acknowledged.

They emerged in a corridor at the top of the stairs. On the first floor at Monarch Press, democracy and openness yielded place to hierarchy and privacy—or secrecy, depending on where the observer was standing. Lindsay was in no doubt which word she’d have chosen.

They walked to the far end of the corridor and started working their way back towards the stairs. The end room was a boardroom that ran the full depth of the building, its centerpiece a vast antique oval table that must have used most of a mahogany tree. “There’s always something, isn’t there,” Lindsay muttered. “All these supposedly radical, right-on companies, they always have an Achilles’ heel of good old greedy capitalist materialism lurking somewhere. Now why do I not believe that table’s one of Danny’s family heirlooms?”

“Because you’re a twisted old cynic. Now come on, never mind the self-righteousness. We’ve got more important things to think about,” Sophie said, chivvying Lindsay out of the doorway and towards the next office, whose door revealed it belonged to the Sales Director. Opposite that was the Marketing Director, then Publicity, opposite Accounts. Finally, they came to an office with no nameplate on its door. “I guess this is it,” Sophie said, turning the door handle.